Publication Date November 14, 2023

True confession time: Portions of this are copied from reviews of recent  Evanovich/Stephanie Plum books. 

I have been reading and enjoying Stephanie Plum’s adventures as a bond enforcement agent (bounty hunter?) for twenty-five+ years (gasp!), ever since One For The Money. And everytime a new one comes out, it makes me happy to know I’m in for hours of entertainment. Seriously, I can’t think of any that let me down…so when I received a copy of Dirty Thirty  (yes, it is really #30 in the series), from Atria Books and NetGalley,I was happy to provide this honest review in exchange. 

For anyone who hasn’t read any of the series, not to worry. Each stands on its own (although I think it’s fun to see how the characters and their relationships progress), so you can dive right in and you will know soon enough who these people are. Stephanie works for her Uncle Vinnie, a bail bondsman in Newark, New Jersey. Stephanie has an ongoing relationship with cop Joe Morelli, and then there is Ranger, super sexy owner of a “security company,” always there to help her when she destroys another car or gets into whatever bizarre trouble she manages to find — or initiate. As Stephanie says “...there were two men in my life, and I wasn’t prepared to choose one over the other. Not that it mattered, because neither of them wanted to marry me.”

Stephanie lives in an apartment with her hamster Rex and works with Lula, a former “woman of the evening,” and they frequently manage to get Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur involved. Stephanie says “Lula is a person of color and I’m a person of less color.” Either way, they are strong, funny women.

In this episode, local jeweler Martin Rabner hires Stephanie to track down his former security guard, “Nutsy,” who may have stolen a pile of diamonds from the jewelry store safe. At the same time, Stephanie is also looking for Duncan Dugan, who was arrested for robbing that same jewelry store on the same day. Stephanie’s cop boyfriend Morelli is away in Miami on police business, so  Stephanie is taking care of Bob, Morelli’s giant orange dog who will devour anything, from Stephanie’s stray donuts to her  couch to the upholstery in her car. Morelli’s absence also means the inscrutable, irresistible security expert Ranger is front and center in Stephanie’s life when things inevitably go sideways. 

To complicate matters, Lula is convinced she is being stalked by a mythological demon (“Grendel”) then we follow Stephanie on an overnight stakeout with both her mother and Grandma Mazur. And Lula? What could possibly go wrong???

To repeat myself from an earlier review, “It isn’t by any means lofty literary reading, but it is well written, fun, and an awesome diversion. It is what it is, and for me it is 5 stars.”